The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.s5.9

v3.c29.s5.9

While Māgha and his confederate, Jaya-Bāhu, were thus oppressing the inhabitants of Poḷonnaruva and the neighbouring districts, a few Sinhalese chieftains successfully defended the religion and liberties of the people in the less accessible highlands. At Subha-pabbata (now Yāpavu in the North-Western Province) was the military commander Subha-senāpati; at Gaṅgādoṇi-pabbata in the Maṇimekhalā district was Saṅkha, another military commander; in Rohaṇa (Southern Ceylon) Bhuvaneka-Bāhu bore sway; and Prince Vijaya-Bāhu, leading a Sinhalese army from the Vanni district, drove the Tamils from the Māyā, or central region of the Island, and, having built for himself a stronghold at Jambudoṇi (Dambadeṇiya), reigned there, contemporaneously with Māgha, for four years, from about a.d. 1227 to 1231. His chief work was the restoration of the Buddhist church, the recovery of such literature as remained, and the revival of letters. He invited to his capital Vāchissara¹, and all other learned Buddhist monks who had fled from the tyranny of Māgha, brought the Tooth and Bowl relics of the Buddha from Kotmale, where they had been hidden, to his capital, and afterwards enshrined them with great ceremony on the top of the Beligala Rock. He convened a Council of Elders consisting of the well-known author Saṅgha-rakkhita, the two Theras named Medhaṅkara, and other representatives of Buddhist fraternities, who sat in his own temple, Vijayārāma, and, after rehearsing the Buddhist canon, issued an ecclesiastical rescript (*Katikāvata*) for the guidance of the clergy. He also caused copies of important Buddhist works to be made, to replenish the temple libraries rifled by the invaders.